It's a crazy system. The ex spouse doesn't have to prove that the money goes for the child's benefit. I try not to add it all up, but it's too easy to do that. The amount is staggering.

The system is highly punitive toward parents who pay (fathers usually). I realized during the divorce that I didn't want to deal with paying through the child enforcement department (it's required for all new cases now). I managed to get the judge to approve paying my ex directly. I paid early every month.

One day she decided to file a complaint saying that I skipped a payment. I became enmeshed in a battle with an intractable bureaucracy that unleashed multiple court orders on me despite my providing them copies of every signed & deposited check. I had to go to my state representative's office and beg for help. Eventually, I was able to get them to agree that I paid every penny on time and they called the dogs off. This process took 5 months and the loss of a lot of time from work to make calls and visit the office in person. It was her word that I was a deadbeat and I was guilty until proven otherwise. I asked what they were going to do about her multiple lies. They just dismissed my concern.

I live in constant fear that she will demand an increase which costs her nothing and initiates a witch hunt on my finances. She doesn't have any W2 income, so it's easy for her to hide what she earns, so my support level is artificially high. The system encourages her to keep the kid away from me so that the percentage of the total support level she receives is increased.

It is a sad situation. All I am is a checkbook. My role as a parent has been diminished. If I want to have custody time enforced I have to pay $400/hr to a lawyer and work through the court system. It just isn't worth it.

If my kid graduates on time I have 15 more payments to make. I will be so happy when I am finally done with dealing DCSE and can eliminate the last connection to my Ex. I will be very thrilled to be in the OP's shoes.

P.s. Did I mention that a year after the divorce I found out the the kid isn't mine?

It's threads like this that make me glad I never married & had kids. I have all my money, hair, home, dignity. All my buddies are miserably married or divorced. They actually show up at my place (An oceanfront apt) on the Atlantic & literally collapse in anguish.... Please they beckon, can I just stay a few hours & blow off some steam or hang out & say almost nothing. I immediately head to my bar for a bottle of single malt... Some of the stories I have heard them tell about the ex's & courts make my toes curl. I regret nothing. Sure, Christmas may be a bit lonely,,, but that's a small price to pay in my mind.

Almost 50K/yr...gone.

Ho-lee Fuk. Are you kidding me? There really is no justice in this world.

^^ really, after hearing what some of you are or have gone thru. It makes my divorce seem like a cakewalk. A cakewalk that I'm still struggling with, but nothing like some are dealing with, SCARY!

So congrats are in order for Joe Bob, and a big hang in there for others still working thru it all. I really feel for those caught in a very unjust system, that doesn't really serve the kids it's supposed to care for. That's sick.

Cheers Richard

A person can file a motion for modification of the order of the court without an atty. I pursued numerous modifications, demanded show cause hearings and generally was my own legal counsel. I figure it amounted to about $15K in saved atty fees PER YEAR! but it also equated to a part time job due to the running around, looking for forms, mailing stuff, time at the courthouse, etc.

My actual expenses (outside of CS and the costs of raising two kids for 186 overnights per year) was the cost of my appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court in which I alleged the State Of Michigan family court was in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

In addition, in separate filings, I alleged the Friend of the Court (sort of a referee who acts on behalf of the minor children and is an appointed employee of the court) was acting in violation of the Michigan Child Custody and Friend of the Court Acts by virtue of it not considering all of the factors required to make recommendations to the court with regard to legal and physical custody, enforcing parenting times and administering CS. I did prevail in the Michigan case, but abandoned the federal case subsequent to an intervention by my friends and family to save myself.

When not doing that stuff, and in addition to working full time, I was doing things like salvaging and cleaning up lumber from a compost bin with which I could build beds for my kids and staining furniture for a furniture manufacturer to earn some money part-time.

I'm gonna say the whole ordeal, which lasted about 10 actual years, cost me at least 20 years of my life-span in stress. A full night's sleep was rare. It was not uncommon for me to bolt upright in the middle of the night screaming. I soon realized that whenever that happened it was futile to try to go back to sleep.

To this very day, I avert my eyes from the courthouse whenever I experience the misfortune of driving by it.

I attribute the 100% reversal from liberalism to conservatism to my discovery that everything liberalism stood for and promulgated and invoked was a lie. It was precisely the moment when the 13th Circuit Court of the State of Michigan informed me that I was not worthy of living with or nurturing or participating in my children experiencing their own lives...

Congrats JB - Go celebrate, you deserve it.

Not in CA.....the court won't even talk to you. It's all rigged to support the lawyers who all in bed with each other. I still owe $500 to my attorney....I'll send her Fify a mont just to get my ounce of flesh.....:eek:

Have I ever mentioned my feeling on divorce lawyers? When I worked cases as a PI, like the painter, I was always the last to be paid and many times had to threaten suit for wages....

You might want to check on that, Joe.

The court would not speak to me either-at first. I'll never forget the time near the beginning when my lawyer stood in the bright sunlight outside the courthouse blinking his eyes and not being able to explain to me why the judge said he had neither the time nor the inclination to hear my case.

The Court determined you no long have the right to be with your own children who you love, despite studies which are highly indicative of childhood stress, mental problems, and dysfunction arising from being raised in a single parent environment which eventually leads to greater dependence on the state. They deliberately create potential public burden through their own policy.
So that's a NO on representation.

Meanwhile the Court determined you are expected to financially contribute to their upbringing. Or, to be directly precise, you are to pay your ex-spouse who has every equal right and opportunity to earn her own living standards, and your money is not tied in any fashion to your children's benefit or well being. The Court just takes her word that she will use it to care for them.
So that's a YES on forced contributions, a form of taxation.

"Representation?" "Taxation?"
I've heard those words used before..

PASS, I will never darken the halls of Santa Barbara again as long as I live. That city and SF can all slide into the cesspool of the Pacific Ocean and take the Giants and Niners with them....

The ocean will throw the Niners back!

When I was in law school, I swore I would never do family law because my father had been divorced 3 times at that point. He was absolutely destroyed fiscally each time and almost did it a fourth. Luckily that crazy woman never married him.

My mother took the CS and he paid for everything else as well; mortgage, insurance, car payments. So where did the CS go? No idea, maybe her fundie church but that's a guess.

I've never understood the alimony bit being from a community property state. Seems like adults should have to take care of themselves but I digress.

So from the kid perspective (in the late 1970's) you have my congrats.

Congrats Joe Bob. I'm in a different boat, I receive CS because the whore didn't want to be tied down and be a parent anymore. My youngest graduates high school in 3-1/2 years. After that, I never want to see or hear about that woman again. I didn't hire a lawyer for my divorce though I had some guidance from from a woman I met, now girlfriend. She was a family law attorney in JB's area. Her sleezeball ex is still there doing the same work as JB. He barely paid any CS and it couldn't be enforced.

I know right?! :)

Yup it is true. I did my own DNA test to be sure. I talked to two lawyers about it. Both of them basically said there isn't much that can be done. The Ex is a pretty nasty person. I remarried to a most wonderful lady who has put up with a lot of abuse from the Ex.

pre-nup-tial agreement.

Fraud. Extortion. Grand Larceny. Emotional distress. Intent to cause long lasting harm. Those are all very real crimes.

Somewhere back then she must have touched your hiney without permission during a sexual assault upon your person.
That's worth a million plus.

Cue:
This is where the whole system needs to be brought down to the ground and overhauled.
Equal rights means just that.

Not taking sides....but there is precedence if the non genetic parent accepts or does not dispute paternity. He would have to back to court to dispute, prove fraud and it's NOT a slam dunk.....

Or every single mother could fill the father box with "Mr. Rothschiild".
Collect later.

Ain't that a kick.